Interesting reading this thread. Perhaps the main knock I have on Kubiak right now is that I don't believe he has it in him to part ways with Schaub at this juncture.

And in terms of Kubes' near term job security, that is probably the best decision for him, I mean, what are the chances that a rookie QB comes in and is an immediate upgrade? What are the chances that we can cut Schaub and then still be able to afford to get a vet who's an upgrade, and then even if we do, the chance that they don't take to the system.

For Kubes, it makes perfect sense to stick with Schaub and keep on beating everyone you're supposed to beat and failing against the elite tier QB's who given the current NFL rules will shred any D you put in front of them.

Take the Welker bomb on KJax, Welker pushed off on Kareem, if Kareem pushed back it would have been PI on D.

As for the Offensive scheme, I really don't know. We talk about our 'young' team, but our O is starting to get old now. AJ getting up there, OD too, Walter, Schaub, Thats 4 of your top 5 skill position players beyond their prime now. They haven't drafted/traded for an upgrade at any of those positions for years either. They bring on their draftees extremely slowly and then bleed them in in a way that puts plenty of tape on to scheme against before they've ever had chance to do any real damage. Just look at the Casey FB switch, I get the feeling Bill would have exploited that mismatch until teams simply had to sell out against it. What does Gary use it for?

A little wrinkle here and there, maybe let him rack up 100 yards receiving in a game once every 18 months or so. Whats the point of that when you could have a full on blocking FB roadgrading for our excellent RB group?

I have no expectations that we'll move on from either Schaub or Kubiak this offseason, and I don't see us winning fewer than 10 games with the status quo either. But we're going to be praying for favourable playoff seedings and more in January 2014 again unless something changes in philosophy. Which, again it won't.

Worst thing about last night? Lots of people were worried that the refs would screw us, yet the calls almost all went our way, there were awful ball spots that moved the chains for us, Fosters TD that could easily have been called short, video evidence was inconclusive at best. Injuries, not something you wish for but the Pats lost some important pieces during the game. What more could you ask for, and the scoreline reads far, far more respectably than it could have done.

This entire Smithiak era is beginning to look to me the way the Chargers looked a few years ago, racking up loads of stats in the regular season and failing in the playoffs. They had a lot of similar tools to what we have in terms of personnel too. Just never managed to get it done.

Good points all, repped.

I guess I'd sum it up this way... We managed to climb out of the cellar and not be perpetual whipping boys any more under Schaub and Kubiak, Yaaay us.

....but is this as good as it gets? How long before Uncle Bob figures out there's more work to be done and he needs new pieces and/or upgrades to existing pieces to go the rest of the way? Because Schaub and/or Kubiak aren't enough.